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This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Names and Sources
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction
Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon and Rachael Hutchinson
Part One: Genre
Chapter 1: Evolution of a Genre: Dragon Quest and the JRPG
Yuhsuke Koyama
Chapter 2: Japan's Hard(ware) Power: Consoles, Culture, and the Mass Appeal of Japanese Role-Playing Games
Nökkvi Jarl Bjarnason
Chapter 3: Tutorial Characters and Rhetorical Strategies: Comparing Mother and Final Fantasy
Fanny Barnabé
Chapter 4: Challenging Linearity: Microstructures and Meaning-making in Trails of Cold Steel III
Joleen Blom
Chapter 5: "Is JRPG Old Fashioned?": Genre, Circulation, and Identity Crisis in Black Rock Shooter: The Game
Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon
Part Two: Representation
Chapter 6: Harmonized Dissonance: Parodies of Japan's America in Earthbound
Benjamin Whaley
Chapter 7: From Cleric to Daemon: Narrative and Ludic Agencies of Female Characters in the Tales of Series
Loïc Mineau-Murray
Chapter 8: Beyond Status Effects: Disability and Japanese Role-Playing Games
Andrew Campana
Chapter 9: Empathy for the Blind: Negotiating Disability in Final Fantasy XV
Rachael Hutchinson
Chapter 10: Everyday Aesthetics and Social Reform in Persona 5
Frank Mondelli
Part Three: Liminality
Chapter 11: Creating Community in Persona 3: Japanese Role-playing Games as Networked Practice
Douglas Schules
Chapter 12: Networked Asymmetry: Uncanny Traces in the Dark Souls Series
Daniel Johnson
Chapter 13: Pseudo-allegory in Final Fantasy XIV
William Huber
Chapter 14: Traces of Change in JRPG History: Mythological Thinking in Fate / Grand Order and Pokémon GO
Daichi Nakagawa
About the Contributors
About the author
Rachael Hutchinson is professor of Japanese studies at the University of Delaware.
Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon is postdoctoral researcher at Université du Québec à Montréal.
